


Of Oceans and Ondines

by Gehayi



Category: Den lille Havfrue | The Little Mermaid - Hans Christian Andersen, Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms, The Raven and the Reindeer - T. Kingfisher
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Little Mermaid Fusion, Aromantic, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/F, LGBTQ Character, Long-Term Relationship(s), Magic, Ocean, POV Female Character, POV Third Person, Post-Canon, Present Tense, Road Trips, Unrequited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-23
Updated: 2017-06-23
Packaged: 2018-11-18 05:47:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11284938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gehayi/pseuds/Gehayi
Summary: While on a journey to the ocean that's also a kind of honeymoon, Gerta and Janna become entangled in the problems of a lovelorn mermaid.





	Of Oceans and Ondines

**Author's Note:**

  * For [evewithanapple](https://archiveofourown.org/users/evewithanapple/gifts).



> **Prompt:** This is such a sweet little story and a great relationship - I'd love to see anything about their lives after the book, whether they go off together to see the sea or settle down in Gerta's grandmother's house and make a life there. Or something in-between! Who knows.

**I. Two Years**

Gerta and Janna spend two years living with Grandmother. Janna's hands soothe and heal horses, dogs and messenger pigeons; all greet her as a friend from the beginning, and it does not take long before the villagers are treating "Gerta's lady" the same way—as if she has lived here all her life and simply got misplaced for a while. Soon enough everyone is eager to pay her in food or coin to look after their beasts and birds, which Janna swears is a gift of the Snow Queen's flying otters.

"Though I can't make out if this luck is a game or a gift," she whispers drowsily to Gerta at night in bed.

Laughing, Gerta stretches and then curls against Janna. "They're otters," she whispers back, kissing Janna's nose . "Why not both?"

Gerta understands, though, for her own skill at gardening and needlework has grown strangely since the year or so that she spent journeying north. Her hands now effortlessly coax to life yellow-petaled marguerite daisies, red clover, horse-chestnut trees that refuse to blossom; the images of them that she embroiders on tablecloths, waistcoats, skirts and bodices are vibrant, catching the eye of all who see them. She wonders sometimes if the plants outside the Snow Queen's palace increased her skill as a thank you for telling them that they would have to fight to end winter.

It isn't magic; Mousebones, the raven who adopted Gerta (and later Janna) on her quest to find Kai, an old friend she'd thought she loved, is emphatic that she has not a scrap of enchantment about her now. Perhaps it's the aftereffects of having run along the reindeer road. Perhaps she's just more confident now than she once was. All she's certain of is that her fellow villagers are as eager to toss coin at her as they are at Janna.

It's not too surprising, therefore, that they swiftly save up enough money to visit the ocean.

***

**II. The Sea**

The journey to the sea is leisurely—as leisurely as a trip in a rented wagon rather than by coaches to elegant hotels could possibly be—for Janna insists there is no hurry. "No one in this country is far from the ocean," she tells Gerta with a wry smile. "Not more than thirty miles and a bit. And there are other things I'd like to show you."

At first the wagon bewilders Gerta. Why not travel more luxuriously? They can afford it now. But a few careful questions clarify matters. Janna longs to show the places she loves to Gerta personally. Schedules, coachmen, reservations and guides would only get in the way.

It's a courtship gift. Janna is offering her beauty and wonder, old memories and new. 

When she realizes this, Gerta gives Janna a smile that is pure sunlight.

Mousebones, of course, invites himself along on the grounds that they would get into terrible trouble without him. "And where else are you going to find a bird who speaks Human?" he asks reasonably. He has hours of persuasive arguments prepared, and is more than a little discomfited when they tell him that they had _expected_ him to come.

Janna takes Gerta to a brewery that houses elephants. Gerta never forgets Janna persuading and then paying the elephants' groom to let them each have a ride; the relaxing, rocking, deliberate tread of the beast; and the curious whuffle it makes after she, with the help of a stepladder, clumsily dismounts. They witness a pair of bicyclists racing up the spiral upward path inside an ancient brick observatory tower; they see a throne surrounded by golden lions and made of twisted unicorn horns. (Or so legend says. _They_ have no trouble believing it.) 

But it's the ocean that they've come for, and here Gerta's breath is taken away, for Janna seems to know dozens of beaches. In one location, a city and a beach exist side by side, as if an invisible wall has been erected between them. In another, a horseshoe-shaped beach of white sand faces the ocean…and a bridge that seems to be floating just above the horizon. Elsewhere, starkly simple lighthouses and churches overlook the dark sea even as they're inexorably being buried by pale sand.

They head to the northernmost point in the country—a sand bar between two seas—and stand barefoot on the very edge of that sandbar, left foot in one ocean, right foot in another. They can't swim in either, for the currents are treacherous and neither is willing to risk losing the other, but hugging and kissing while simultaneously standing in two seas is just perfect.

But it's at a copper-roofed castle—and, more properly, at the nearby seaside village, that the two of them lose their hearts. There's greenery in abundance for Gerta and a wild ocean (now teal, now greenish-gray) for Janna. Mousebones finds, to his delight, that the seagulls speak a dialect that he understands. Soon they've rented rooms in a local tavern for the rest of the summer, their landlady not even bothering to ask if they're together. She simply glances at them and says, "Married?"

Gerta can only blush hotly and nod. This gets worse when Janna replies calmly, "Yes. Three years now. This is our honeymoon. A bit late, but..." And she shrugs.

"Good," says the landlady, smiling. "I hope you've been—and will stay—very happy." And she hands them the key to their room.

None of them say anything about renting one of the cottages this year; neither Gerta nor Janna wants to move to a new village without at least discussing the matter with Grandmother first, while Mousebones avoids being too sarcastic about human customs. The most he says is that no one who has faced the Snow Queen is a fledgling, so if they want to set up their own nest, they can.

They insist that they don't want anything of the kind. To prove it, they spend the first day after rental idling on the beach, Gerta covered with skin ointment to keep her from burning.

The second day after they rent the room, Janna heads toward the castle before daybreak. It's summer, and a fair amount of hunting is done now. Horses and hounds may need looking after…though it's not likely that a girl horse-leech without references will even be treated as a serious contender for such a job. It would be…reassuring…to know that she could find a job here in the future.

Gerta frets all day that by gardening or embroidering here, she might be taking food out of the mouths of the hungry.

On the third day, when the sky is the pearlescent white of not-quite-dawn, Gerta, taking an early morning walk, sees the mermaid.

***

**III. Mermaid Song**

Gerta's immediate thought is that there's a young girl—for only the mermaid's head and torso are visible—swimming naked in the ocean. Her second thought is that the girl is staring intently at the copper-roofed castle, as if she wants to draw closer but doesn't dare.

_Did she sneak out of the castle? Did someone fling her into the ocean? Has she escaped from kidnappers? What's going on?_

Gerta's just turning to run back to the tavern—for there must be someone local who can swim out and rescue the girl—when the girl begins to sing.

Hearing it is, for Gerta, like being bathed in the scents of her garden, of bread hot from the oven and freshly baked by her grandmother, of sheets dried by the summer sun, and of Janna herself—all the smells that say "home" to her. Even as she thinks that, the song changes to a mournful key. _Imagine,_ it says, _knowing where home is,_ who _home is, and also knowing that it's forever beyond your reach._

Hot tears are just beginning to well up in Gerta's eyes when the girl dives beneath the greenish-blue waters…and Gerta catches a glimpse of a large, silvery-green tail.

That night, when Janna returns home from job-hunting, Gerta invites her to a picnic on the beach at sunset. They dine on cold roasted chicken, cold roast beef, salad, and white wine—all purchased from their rather romantic landlady—as the day's frustrations melt into jokes and stories. Janna relaxes, wriggling her now-bare toes in the pale sand as they watch the sunset sky blazing orange, scarlet, and vibrant pink . Sighing, she lies down, placing her head in Gerta's lap.

"I saw a mermaid today," Gerta says softly, stroking Janna's black curls and then kissing her forehead. "I heard her singing."

There is a moment of silence, and then Janna gazes up at her in a mixture of perplexity and worry. "You _what_?"

Gerta explains what she saw and heard. Janna believes her—after all that has happened to them, how could she not? —but, well, mermaids can be dangerous; their songs, legends say, can make people walk into the ocean.

" _I_ didn't," Gerta points out. "I don't think that her song was an attack. I think she's just unhappy."

"Not as unhappy as I'll be if you don't give me another kiss pretty soon," says Janna, smiling wickedly, and the picnic soon adjourns to their rented room and their bed.

And there it might have ended. But Mousebones, curious chatterbox raven that he is, learns more about the mermaid, thanks to the gossipy colony of seagulls living near the beach.

"She seems to be interested in the castle," he tells them in private a couple of nights later. (It must be in private now; humans tend to notice birds not merely echoing words in human languages but actually carrying on a conversation.) "She visits it a lot, especially at sunrise and at sunset."

"Why then?" Gerta asks.

Mousebones fluffs out his feathers in the avian equivalent of a shrug. "Maybe that's when she can get away from home without being noticed."

A thoughtful expression sweeps across Janna's face. "Like she's slipping off to spend some time with someone. Only they never show up."

"Someone in the castle?" Then Gerta frowns. "That doesn't make sense. How would she meet anyone from there?"

"Maybe someone should ask her," replies Janna. 

***

**IV. Meeting**

After some discussion, they decide to rent a rowboat. A sailboat would be better, but neither of them knows how to sail. Rowing, however, is something that all the members of Janna's robber band had had to do at some point or other; brooks and rivers can be useful escape routes, and loot-laden boats can hide downstream while a camp is searched for stolen goods.

"But it's the ocean, not a stream," Janna says, scowling. "I've never rowed in the ocean. And Gerta, you barely know how to swim. If the boat capsizes—"

Gerta strives to reassure her. The boat will stay upright. The ocean will be obedient. They will row out and back safely. Everything will be fine.

Neither of them raises the specter of what will happen if the mermaid doesn't show up. They don't have the money to rent a rowboat a second time. Mousebones has done his part, convincing three or four seagulls to please, please tell the mermaid that two humans want to talk to her about the castle. Reportedly, she has agreed to meet them before dawn a week hence—"the day before the sea and sky are filled with bells ringing," which Gerta and Janna are both translating as "Saturday"—in a shallow cove that only the smallest of boats can reach. 

Sadly, it's not the most certain of reports. They are, after all, being told this by a talking raven who heard it from a seagull who claims to have heard it from a mermaid. And while they would trust Mousebones to the end of the world, they're both somewhat less certain about the honesty of the seagull.

Janna spends the week practicing her rowing, while Gerta tries to teach herself how to move her arms and legs simultaneously so that, in case of accident, she can stay afloat.

The journey to the cove is awkward. When one of them shifts position even slightly, the boat threatens to tip over. The oars don't always scull the water properly. And it doesn't help that neither of them has ever been to this cove before. But somehow—damp, splashed with sea water, tense and nauseated—they reach the cove. 

The mermaid, miraculously, is waiting for them.

They had expected to need a translator, so they brought Mousebones along. After all, they knew she could speak Seagull. 

But to their surprise, it's not necessary. She speaks their language, though with an odd accent. 

All of them are awkwardly shy at first, the mermaid not even wanting to share her name. But at last Gerta blurts out that she heard the mermaid's song and that it was the most beautiful, heart-wrenching thing she had ever seen, and Janna adds that the pain in the song convinced them that she might be in trouble.

It all comes out then: the tale of a prince, handsome and kind (at least when glimpsed from afar), his love of sailing, a ship-destroying storm, and a unconscious man rescued and brought to an inhabited island. (Impossible to guess which island. There are so many.) The mermaid does not weep as she speaks of this, but she twists her hands and glances away from them as if she would give much to be able to break down in undignified sobs.

"So you've never spoken to him?" Janna asks.

The mermaid shakes her head. "What if he didn't like me? And…it's not only the prince I want. I want to be human. To have a soul."

Mousebones snorts at that. "You have one. Everyone does."

That earns him a glare from the mermaid. For a moment, Gerta wonders if she's going to conjure up a typhoon. "My grandmother said that merfolk don't. That we become sea foam when we die."

"And human corpses become food for worms," snaps Mousebones. "I don't see what that has to do with souls. Or the prince."

The mermaid dives underwater for a few minutes—the more agitated she becomes, the more difficult it seems to be for her to breathe using lungs instead of gills—and then returns. "They say…they say that souls can divide. That part of a human soul can take up residence in another human's body. So you have sayings like 'One soul in two bodies' to describe friends and lovers. It doesn't hurt anyone!"

"I don't think that can happen without getting to know the person first," Gerta says gently. "I didn't dream I wanted anyone like Janna until I got to know her."

Janna gives Gerta a dazzling smile and a fierce hug before asking the mermaid a far more difficult question."You said 'another human's body.' Where are you going to get one of those?"

The mermaid's posture has been rigid until this minute. Now her skin turns the color of the gray limestone boulder she's sitting on, and Gerta recalls stories she's heard in the tavern's common room about fish that try to blend in with their surroundings when they're frightened.

"The sea witch," she whispers at last. "She'll ask a high price; she always does. Everyone says that. But if I were human, he might love me."

Gerta can tell from the thundercloud expression on Janna's face that it's on the tip of her tongue to tell the mermaid that she could just as easily end up stuck with someone who mostly despises her but who occasionally rations out dry crusts of compliments. _As I almost did with Kai._ She's certain that if Janna does say this, the mermaid will refuse to listen and swim straight to the sea witch. Magically altering your body for someone to whom you haven't said so much as "Hello" does not seem to be a path predestined for happiness.

"What about meeting him here in the cove?" she asks. "You could write him a letter. Or a poem. That might get his attention."

But the mermaid does not know how to write. The only ink she is acquainted with comes from squids, and any words traced on the sea floor with a stick or a finger are washed away seconds later. And, well, she _has_ been singing. The prince hasn't responded to her voice at all.

"Maybe one of you could speak to the prince?" the mermaid asks, her face upturned, her expression desolate. 

"We don't know him," Janna replies. She hastens to explain that there are countless people in the world that neither of them has ever met, but the mermaid is visibly astonished by this. Evidently she knows (or believes she knows) every merman and mermaid that swims in the sea.

Gerta manages to steer the conversation back to things like the mermaid's family (a father, a grandmother, and five older sisters, all of whom seem to love her deeply) and the witch (who lives beyond maelstroms far to the north), but the mermaid's bearing is now quieter and more resigned. _I know he loves me,_ it says. _I simply can't prove it._ Gerta can recall feeling like this herself not long ago.

So she asks Mousebones. "Could you find the prince?"

The raven is honest. "I couldn't reach the towers of the palace or the masts of his ships; one's too high and the other's too far. My bad wing would give out. If he was hunting in the forest with plenty of trees around for me to perch on…maybe." He glares at all three of them. "And I'm not speaking to him. He'd either decide I was enchanted or he'd put me in Parliament."

"Could you carry a message on your leg?" 

"If it wasn't too heavy."

It's not the best possible answer. But it's an answer. The mermaid seems to accept that.

"When will I see you again?" she asks.

Gerta sighs. "Never, I'm afraid. We haven't the money to rent a boat again."

Explaining money and the need for it takes considerable time. However, when the mermaid finally does understand, she tells them, "Wait here," and dives beneath the waves. After what seems like hours she returns, cradling a small, iron-bound, algae-covered chest.

"I think that this contains the metal you need," she says, just barely not dropping the chest straight through the boat. "If it's not enough, send Mousebones to let me know, and I'll find you some more." So saying, she turns to go.

Gerta is never certain what makes her call out, "Next week? Same time?"

The mermaid glances back and nods emphatically

It's not until after they arrive back at the tavern—Janna's arms throbbing with pain—that they realize that the mermaid never told them her name.

***

**V. Embroidery**

Shortly after this meeting, Janna's otter-luck reappears. The woman who rented her the boat has a brother who works in the royal stables. Several horses are severely ill—so much so that asking a tourist who says she's a horse doctor to help seems like a good idea. Janna learns a few things about the prince…such as the fact that he grooms the horses that he rides and mucks out their stables.

"Never heard of a prince who did that," she muses over dinner. "I think I like this man."

On days when Janna isn't healing horses, the two of them wander around the beaches and coves and discover unexpected places in the village surrounding the castle: a contorted labyrinth of spruce, birch and willow trees, planted to keep back the sea; a deer park; and the best cheese in the entire country. 

Gerta doesn't open a kiosk or start selling her needlework., though she thinks that if they stay much longer, she'll need to do both. This village is starting to feel more and more like home. Instead, she embroiders a message on a fine linen handkerchief, the best and largest and lightest she can afford, so that it won't strain Mousebones too much. It reads: 

_Your Highness:_

_I am the one who saved you when your ship sank on your sixteenth birthday. I left you on an island—I do not know its name—where you were found by some young women studying at a temple there. It took me some time to learn who you were, but since then I have sung outside your castle I do not know how often. I would eagerly run to you now if I could._

_I have no right to ask this, and yet I must. Please meet me in the cove below on Saturday before dawn. Please. I think that my heart may soon burst if I do not speak to you in person._

_One Who Loves You Well_

And beneath the letter is embroidered a detailed map with realistic images of the mermaid in each corner.

It isn't hard for Gerta to pass the handkerchief to Janna, or for Janna to leave it somewhere for Mousebones to snatch up and then drop, mid-hunt, virtually on the prince's head.

"I don't trust royalty," he says firmly. "I want to be sure he understands the map is meant for him without my having to peck it into his skull."

And once it's delivered, there's nothing the three of them can do but wait.

***

**VI. Friendship's Cost**

A month passes before they hear from the mermaid again, leaving Janna worried about offended royalty and Gerta fretting that the prince might see the mermaid as evil...especially if she starts talking about wanting part of his soul for her own.

In the meantime, there are only rumors. The prince is going to tour the world. No, he's sailed off to a retreat in another country. No, that's not possible, for the king and queen are planning a royal wedding for the prince and a beautiful foreigner. A thousand tales, ten thousand, each repeated with faithful certainty by the villagers in general and their landlady in particular, and there's no way of knowing which, if any, is true.

At last, however, the mermaid sends a message to them via Mousebones: _I need to talk to you. Please come to the cove tomorrow._

Janna struggles to find someone who will rent a boat to someone on short notice. The widow they rented from before fishes half the time and sells fish the other half, and tomorrow is a fishing day. They also can pay very little; as they told the mermaid before, they really can't afford multiple boat rentals on top of the cost of their room, their meals, and the inevitable trip home. But...their friend sounds as if she's desperate. They must just make do.

However, no sooner has Janna found a boat ("Don't ask," she says, and Gerta, gazing at her grim expression, decides not to upset her wife further) when the king's favorite mare develops glanders, which is both contagious and potentially fatal.

Both of them know that Janna could no more ignore an animal in pain than she could live without breathing. They likewise know that Gerta isn't nearly skilled enough or strong enough to row herself to the cove alone, but that she'll try anyway. So Janna doesn't tell her not to. She wraps Gerta in a tight hug just before heading to the palace early that morning, with a fierce "I'll see you when I get back" whispered in her right ear. There's no wishing of luck, no joking threats, no last-minute instructions. Just the message that of course Gerta will make it to the cove and back, because anything less is unacceptable.

And then, once Janna's out of sight, Gerta sighs, trudges to the dock, and, beneath a star-strewn summer sky, launches the rowboat.

The journey to the cove is...no, not a nightmare. After battling the Snow Queen, Gerta knows what nightmares truly are. An exercise in frustration, perhaps, for all the love and courage in the world can't help her row in a straight line instead of a circle. The oars seem determined not to work together for more than a matter of seconds; one always draws too much water and the other too little. And she's grimly sure that she's going to miss the cove altogether, as she has to row with her back to her destination.

She's never sure what causes the boat to capsize. The wake of another larger boat (or should she call it a ship?) pushing hers off-balance? A current much too strong for her? Herself? What she _does_ remember is sitting in the rowboat, seeing that the boat is tipping much too far to one side, and not knowing how to stop it.

She gasps, and perhaps that's what saves her, for she's submerged in the sea a moment later, her eyes stinging from the salt and, since it is still only a dim shadow far above her that might—might—be the rowboat.

She fights her way toward air(or what she hopes is air), ignoring the iron band squeezing her lungs, her sodden skirt alternately billowing out and tangling about her legs, the leather boots that feel like anchors of iron and lead pulling her to the sea floor.

When Gerta's head finally breaks the surface, all she can do is gasp and pant as she battles to keep her legs moving. Her eyes are still stinging, and for some time, she can't distinguish the shadow of the rowboat from the night surrounding her. When her vision adjusts to the darkness once more, her heart sinks—which feels rather like being struck with a sledgehammer, if sledgehammers could be made of both 100% iron and pure despair.

For the rowboat is just barely visible, a squarish patch of darkness faintly bobbing near the horizon.

Several realizations flood her mind simultaneously: that she will never, ever be able to catch the rowboat now; that she will certainly wear herself out if she tries; that not a single rock or sand bar exists for her to rest on when she _does_ wear herself out; that they are certainly going to have to pay for that lost boat, and God alone knows how they're bear that burden; that neither Janna nor Mousebones knows where she is (for Mousebones is perched on a tree outside of the tavern, sound asleep); that she's much too far from the shore to swim there, even if she could see it; and that she honestly has no idea in which direction land lies.

A venomous thought slithers into her mind: _I don't know where I am and I don't know how to get home and I'm going to die._

This is such a terrible thought that for an instant, she stops kicking her legs. Almost instantly, she starts to sink once more. Spluttering, she begins once more…but now she is aware of how tired she already is and how much she longs to lie down.

Hours lie between now and sunrise, when she will actually be able to see where she is. She can't tread water for that long. She needs to—but she can't. And she has no way of knowing if any potential rescuers are around or if screams for help would be a waste of breath.

This would be a wonderful time for a mermaid to show up. Gerta glances around and sighs. Not a sign.

The one place that she knows Janna and Mousebones will look for her is the cove. So that is probably the best place to go. But—where is it? Which direction should she go?

She looks around. On either side of her, she sees nothing but water. A glance over her shoulder shows her the same. But ahead of her and slightly to the left is a slightly rounded shadow distinct from the rest of the night. And here and there are glints of light that may be lanterns illuminating homes and businesses of people who wake early.

They may also be stars. Or the glimmers of her own imagination. Gerta admits this to herself briefly and then decides that the possibility is not worth considering. Something that may be the village is close enough for her to see, and if it's close enough to see, then it's close enough for her to paddle to. That has to be true. She can't possibly drown while being close enough to reach safety. To reach _Janna_. The universe can't be that cruel. 

_I have walked the reindeer road,_ she thinks, recalling the ghostly road that only reindeer—or those transformed into them—can find. _I've met witches and broken enchantments. I've flown through the sky in a sleigh drawn by talking flying otters. And I've met my true love. After all that, I'm not going to die by drowning, especially when I can get back to her._

Nodding to herself (though scarcely aware of this), she swims toward the village.

But something seems to go wrong with time. She swims and swims for what feels like hours, but she seems to draw no closer. She tries floating on her back—Janna has told her about this—and promptly sinks into the ocean once more. Wearily, she goes back to dog-paddling.

As the sky grows imperceptibly lighter, a current grips her. At first she's pleased; she'll reach the shore faster this way. But then she realizes that she's being pulled away from the village (and it _is_ a village; she can see that much now), grits her teeth and redoubles her efforts.

 _Pretend you're Janna,_ she tells herself, doing her best to cut across the current and loosen its grip. _She would fight the entire ocean as if it was her family's robber band. Janna would never quit._

The sun rises, and she's still in the water. Her skin is like wet ice now, her teeth won't stop chattering, her sodden clothes weigh on her as if she were a statue clad in marble robes. She wonders dimly how the mermaid can bear the incessant cold.

The mermaid. She's been trying not to think about her. What will she think when neither Gerta nor Janna appear in response to her call for help? Gerta has seen neither fish nor seagulls, and who else could tell the mermaid what happened this past night? Janna will be fighting for the life of the king's mare and her stablemates for days. And Mousebones is undoubtedly still asleep.

The current mercifully lessens as the water grows shallower. Even so, she scarcely trusts that she is close enough to the village to reach the shore until her left knee strikes rock and sand. The ocean seems to keep tilting. _As if it wants to confuse me._

She makes her way out of the water on her hands and knees. 

Only then does she look about and find that the village looks subtly wrong. A red-headed man she's never seen before speaks to her…but he's wrong, too. His gibberish words have something of the same sound as the language she speaks, but not quite.

And there's no real time to focus on the eerie wrongness of the village or its people, as she finds that—stupidly, ridiculously—her body has just run out of air. 

***

**VII. Confessions**

The red-headed man, who turns out to be a tall, gangly woman, revives Gerta, pushing the water out of her lungs. Other sailors—siblings of the redhead? Friends? Lovers? —fetch her rags to dry herself with and a clean, dry jacket, shirt and trousers. After what she thinks of as a game of charades—for she still can't understand a word they're saying, nor, it seems, can they understand her—one of them, a girl two or three years Gerta's junior, leads her onto the largest and grandest ship she's ever seen, opens the door to what is plainly the captain's cabin, and repeats the gestures that say she should get changed here.

Gerta objects. The captain surely wouldn't want a soaked stranger here. She tries to express this with her hands as well as her words, but she senses she's not very good at it. 

But perhaps the panicked expression that she can feel frozen to her face is enough, for the sailor through unerring mimicry, tells her that this is the cabin of the gangly red-headed woman. _She_ is the captain. And this is her idea. After expressing this, the sailor leaves, closing the door after her.

Getting changed takes effort. She eventually has to slice her knotted bootlaces and bodice strings with a letter opener cribbed from the captain's desk. And the less said about the difficulty in getting that soaked skirt off, the better. But at last she's in the sailor's outfit. She can almost see Janna gazing at her with a look of relief and pleasure and what Gerta thinks of as "bedroom approval." 

She starts for the door, intent on getting back to Janna as quickly as possible. But a wave of dizziness as implacable as any ocean waves she's battled the previous night sweeps over her. She stumbles backwards, lands on the captain's bed and, in an effort to shut out the whirling of the cabin, closes her eyes.

***

She is sure that she only closed her eyes for a moment when she hears someone knocking at the door. "Come in," she calls out, before realizing that even if the sailors did understand her speech, that might not be the wisest thing to say.

A sailor—this one a young man—walks in carrying a tray of steaming hot food. His hair and eyes are both black, or so close to black as to make no difference, and he's wearing a shy smile. "I thought you might be hungry by now," he says gently, placing the tray on the bed, "and the captain agreed."

"Oh, _yes!_ Thank you!" And Gerta dives for the food…only to pause before the fork can reach her lips. "'By now'?"

"You slept most of the day. Truthfully, I would have been surprised if you hadn't. Captain Björklund was amazed that you managed to reach shore, given your state. What happened?"

Gerta explains about the rowboat capsizing, hoping that will be the end of it. 

But of course it isn't. The young man studies her thoughtfully. "You don't _look_ like a smuggler."

"I'm _not_!"

"Then what _were_ you doing, rowing across the ocean in the middle of the night?"

"A friend sent us a message that she wanted to see us," Gerta says, picking her way through the conversation as if she were trying to navigate through a forest strewn with hunters' snares. "We thought she might be in trouble. But then a horse got sick, and J—and my wife couldn't come."

The sailor looks surprised as the words "my wife" but makes no comment. "Who is your friend?"

A reasonable question. Friends do, after all, usually know each other's names. From a distant memory of a Greek myth—had she read it, or did her grandmother tell her? —Gerta dredges up the word "Nereid." _Sea nymph. That'll do._

"I suppose," she says slowly, "that you could call her Nerissa. Anyway, she wanted us to meet her in a cove around dawn. I tried to get there. My boat—the boat we rented—capsized. And trying to stay afloat until I could reach the shore was more important than wearing myself out trying to catch it."

"A cove." His eyes gleam at this. "Where?"

Gerta squirms; the last thing she wants to do is betray her friend. "Not far from the copper-roofed castle," she hedges. "I couldn't draw you a map—"

"I already have one. Tell me, what would you say is Nerissa's most striking feature?"

Gerta considers this, doing her best to ignore the voice in the back of her mind screaming that this is the prince and that she's in _so_ much trouble. She stands a trifle unsteadily. "Do you mean when you listen to her or when you look at her? Because I've heard her sing, so I'd say it was her voice. But most people would say her…leglessness?"

The prince laughs at this, sounding genuinely amused. "That's a diplomatic way of putting it. Why not say she's a mermaid?"

That breaks the ice. Soon the prince, who tells her to call him August, has persuaded her to sit down and finish her dinner as they discuss the mermaid that they've agreed to refer to as Nerissa. For she hasn't told the prince her name, either, saying that it involves a momentary flick of the tail or the claws. No human can pronounce it.

August and the mermaid, it appears, have hit it off beautifully. She has provided far more details than Gerta had about the shipwreck and his rescue, laying to rest forever any suspicions that this might be a trick. She's also assured him, with all the regality of a sea princess, that he owes her nothing; she did not save him so that he'd feel an eternal obligation. 

Since then they have segued into talking about their respective lives—the depths of the sea that August longs to explore and the forests, cities and hills the mermaid aches to discover. He adores her sweet, haunting voice and the leaping dances that often accompany her songs. He isn't in love with her, but he is in _like_. 

But one thing stands in the way of this friendship, romance or whatever it may be: August's upcoming marriage.

"I did hear a rumor about that," Gerta murmurs. 

"It's no rumor. I've been betrothed since I was born to a southern princess. I've never even seen her, though I've heard that she is…well, some say she's a scientist while others say that she's _merely_ clever. But whether she's both or neither, to break the engagement at this point would be to invite war. Not to mention that many people would assume that I'd found out something dreadful about her; why else break the engagement at this late date?"

"Have you talked to the princess about this?" Gerta asks, privately wagering that he hasn't.

And she's right. The one thing he has done is sail off on his royal schooner, the _Najaden_ , to a foreign land. "This one," he adds. "But as it's just on the other side of the bay from the castle, it's not a particularly _strange_ foreign land."

"Shouldn't the _Najaden_ 's crew have known our language, then?"

August shakes his head. "The crew from home would have. You met the crew from around here. They understand a great deal—our languages have many words in common—but they don't speak our tongue, at least not fluently. Captain Björklund was the one who told me that you seemed to be speaking my language, so perhaps it would be a good idea if I spoke to you."

 _He obeyed her, then. At least the princess won't have to deal with ego._ "What does Nerissa think of your upcoming marriage?"

"Heartsick," the prince says bluntly. "And to her, it's all the worse because I'm willing to marry the princess but not her. She doesn't understand that this is about politics. She keeps talking about becoming human."

"She doesn't think mermaids have souls," Gerta tells him. "And I think she believes that you'd love her—even marry her—if she were a human woman. Because your love would give her one."

August shakes his head. "I doubt it. I've never loved anyone that way—man, woman or in-between. Nerissa is a wonderful friend, the best friend I've ever had. If my relationship with the princess is even half as good, I'll be pleased. But I'm not _romantic_. I don't know how to be."

The two sit in companionable silence for a bit until, without warning, Captain Björklund opens the door. She glances at the prince, leaning against the captain's desk, and Gerta, who is sitting on the bed across the room from him, an empty tray beside her. The captain raises a quizzical eyebrow and nods toward the tray.

August blushes. Gerta can't recall seeing a man older than her blush before this. "Oh! I should have brought that back. I'll go bring it to the cook now."

The captain evidently does understand their language, for she nods at the prince's words. Then she tosses a long, pear-shaped sentence in his direction. After several minutes of indecipherable conversation, August turns to her. "Where did you say that you and your wife were staying?"

Gerta describes and names the tavern, as well as the landlady. 

"That area is too shallow for the _Najaden_ to dock," August says with a frown. "But I think that if we sail back to the castle today, I can find a way of conveying you home. I shouldn't like your lady to worry about you any longer than necessary." He picks up the tray and then fires an incomprehensible paragraph at the captain. It seems to include a question mark.

The captain nods— _yes, of course we can do that_ — bows to the prince, smiles at Gerta, and then exits as silently as she had entered. August, tray in hand, follows.

 _Home,_ Gerta thinks, leaning back on the bed. _I'm going home._

***

**VIII. Sorcery**

Gerta's arrival at the tavern in a royal coach is a nine days' wonder for the villagers, especially the landlady, though Gerta herself is just grateful to be home. Janna—home from treating the sick horse, which is now on the road to recovery—makes studiously calm conversation with everyone in the tavern, hugs Gerta hard, and does not let go of her for a minute, either before they go to bed or after.

Two days later, the village is abuzz with the news that the lost rowboat has been replaced by a new one. The new boat arrives with an unsigned letter apologizing to the new owner for taking so long to replace the old one.

"Though I don't know why August did that," Gerta tells Janna in bed that night. "All I did was listen."

Janna shrugs; so long as Prince August shows no interest in Gerta, he's free to do as he likes. "I pity the mermaid. She's the one who loves someone who can't love her back."

"I wish we could fix things for her…"

"We can't." The ferocity in Janna's tone makes Gerta stare at her. "We can't force her to be happy, any more than you could make Kai want to be free."

And it's true. But privately Janna worries. It isn't just that she likes what she's seen of the mermaid. She doesn't like leaving things half-finished. And they'll have to start for home in a matter of weeks.

"What do you think?" she asks Mousebones one day when Gerta is off at the market. She's sitting on the beach and tossing crusts to the seagulls, even though Mousebones, who is perched on her shoulder, has told her that this is nothing more than a waste of fresh bread. Seagulls, in his opinion, are flying goats; they will eat anything. 

"I think hundreds of things," Mousebones retorts. "What in particular are you asking about?"

"The mermaid. I don't think the prince will ever love her—"

" _That's_ true."

"—but I wish she could walk on land. And breathe here, too," she hastily adds.

"I can't do magic," Mousebones reminds her patiently. "I only recognize it."

"Do you know anyone who _can_ do it?"

She expects an immediate, harshly cawed "No." But instead, Mousebones hesitates for a moment and then says, "Maybe."

And that's the most she gets out of him for three days. After dinner on the third day, while she and Gerta are outside, cuddling beneath a tree in the tavern's garden, Mousebones lands clumsily on a branch above them and says, "I think I found someone up at the palace that can help, and she's willing to meet you tomorrow."

So of course when Janna goes off to the stables the next day to see how the horses in her charge are doing, Gerta comes along with her. Neither can imagine who the sorceress is, though both are hoping that whoever it is is both kind and unwilling to make unhappy people pay more than they can bear.

But there's no one waiting in the stables for them, and Gerta feels an unreasonable twinge of disappointment. She had been hoping for a scientist-sorceress. The prince's bride-to-be, perhaps; isn't she supposed to be immensely wise? Of course, Gerta can't imagine why a wise scientist-sorceress wouldn't simply whip up an invention or potion on her own and then sail out to the mermaid's cove instead of taking the time to meet a young horse-doctor and the woman she loves. But it would have been nice to have someone involved for whom magic is no mystery.

"This way," says Mousebones, after a cautious glance about to see if the attention of the grooms and stable boys is on something other than himself. He flutters to the stall of a handsome black horse with a white mane and announces, "I brought them."

"Thank you," says a nasal whinny, and Gerta realizes that yes, the horse is speaking. "I'm Falan. You"—a nod—"must be Gerta. And I've already met Janna, thanks to her caring for me when I was ill this summer."

" _You're_ a sorceress?" Janna blurts out. 

"Not precisely," Falan replies. "Oh, I know a great deal of magic, but some aspects of practice elude me. But magic and speech do run in my family, and have for generations. I'm named for a distant ancestor, Falada—surely you've heard of him?—who was executed when a maid usurped a princess's place and she feared that he'd tell someone the truth. After that, we were much more cautious about letting humans know that we could talk. But in the present circumstances, we need each other. I have knowledge that you don't, and it will be much easier for you to craft a potion than it would be for me." And she looks pointedly at their hands.

Relief sweeps over Gerta. "I'm so glad that you want to help Nerissa."

Falan blows air out of her nostrils. "I've heard a fair bit from the raven about this. And I do pity her. But I'm more afraid that she'll do something foolish for which the prince will forever feel responsible. Not only his marriage would be ruined by guilt and pain, but quite possibly his reign. And I do not want the Sea King to blame this kingdom for his daughter's misery. Some places are scarcely above sea level as it is. 

"So, if you are willing, we must do something…and quickly, before she decides that the sea witch—yes, your raven friend has told me that Nerissa has mentioned her—is her best and only choice."

Gerta gulps; it hadn't occurred to her that the Sea King might feel vengeful if anything happened to his child.

"I'm willing to help," Janna says quietly, stroking Falan's neck. "But I'm no witch. And neither is Gerta."

"You needn't be. The magic is in the ingredients, not the maker."

"Ingredients for what?" inquires Gerta.

"A potion that will grant the mermaid part of what she wants—though not the prince's heart. He's not made for romance, poor fellow. But it would grant her the ability to walk on land for a year and a day. It would not be perfect; sometimes she would have difficulty breathing, even if there was nothing wrong with her lungs. And at other times, standing upright would be a burden, as it's been long and long since her ancestors did the same. I can do nothing about that. But she'd be free to go where she would on land while the potion lasted." Falan looks reflective. "Of course, when the spell's done—"

"She dies?" Gerta exclaims, sounding and feeling horrified.

Falan glances at her in shock. "No! Of course not!"

"She takes a second helping of the potion?" Janna asks. "I imagine she could stay human almost indefinitely that way—wait until the spell wears off and then swallow more potion five minutes later."

"It doesn't work that way," snaps Falan with irritation. "She'd get a year and a day, and once the spell was spent, it wouldn't work again. There's only one circumstance under which it would last for longer, and there's no point in even mentioning _that_ because if she deliberately tried to achieve it, it wouldn't work.

"So. Are you willing to help?"

***

Falan gives them a list of ingredients to gather, none of which Gerta can recall afterwards. They beg the use of the kitchen from their landlady, steeping and pureeing herbs and pounding pebbles into powder. It takes, or seems to take, forever. But at last it's done. As Janna pours it into an empty waterskin, Gerta thinks that it has the fresh, green smell of earth combined with the scent of air after a thunderstorm.

They make one last trip by rowboat (this one costs them nothing, as the old sailor who was given a new boat after Gerta's disastrous voyage is more than willing to try for a second piece of luck) and tell the mermaid about the potion and its shortcomings, emphasizing the occasional breathlessness and sometime back and leg pain.

"It's still a kinder spell than the sea witch would brew," the mermaid says firmly. "Give it to me."

"Um…" Gerta can't help but think of her own grandmother on the day she walked off to get Kai back from the Snow Queen. "Aren't you going to tell your family where you're going first? They'll miss you."

"If I go back now—" The mermaid lowers her gaze and holds out her hand for the waterskin, which Janna gives to her. However, Gerta does notice that the mermaid calls seagulls, flatfish and lobsters to her before she so much as uncorks the potion, and that she speaks to each for a very long time. Detailed goodbye messages, at least.

Then, seating herself on a rock near the shore, she swallows the potion in one swig.

***

**IX. Aftermath**

Once Nerissa awakens, they give her spare clothes they brought for her (as they realized that a half-naked mermaid wouldn't transform into anything but a naked young woman) and show her how to put them on, how to stand, how to walk, how to ask for help. Then, once she's mastered the rudiments, they take her from the cove to the village. In truth, they suspect that they'll have to help her extensively for the next few months, for she knows little of human society and understands even less.

But even as they're attempting to talk the landlady into letting a vulnerable young friend of theirs stay here for a bit, Nerissa slips away. A subsequent search reveals that she's nowhere in the village, though someone answering to her description found passage with someone sailing south to the mainland.

"That's her choice," says Falan when they tell her the next day. "Leave her be."

"But anything could happen to her!" Gerta protests. "Anything at all!"

Falan gazes at her with large, expressive brown eyes. "She's on an adventure. They're not _meant_ to be safe."

And in any case, they don't have time to do much about it, as they've only a handful of days before they have to go home. Grandmother is expecting them.

"I hate this," Gerta grumbles as they load their wagon with luggage that seems to have trebled in size since they left home. "I want to know what happened!"

"Maybe we'll find out," replies Janna…though without much hope. It will be at least two years before they can afford to return, if they can. Being respectable and law-abiding is _expensive_. And neither of them wants to leave Grandmother alone again.

"I wish it could have been more romantic," she says at last.

Gerta casts her mind back over all the things she's seen and done and all the people she's met and befriended since this past spring. "I could have done without my boat capsizing and me having to swim to a different country," she admits. "But as to everything else—" She leans forward and kisses Janna on the lips. "I don't know that it could have been any more perfect." _Because you were there._

***

It seems to take them less than no time to get home, to greet the neighbors, to exchange gossip, and to tell Grandmother in private about meeting Gerta's meeting with a prince and a mutual friendship with a mermaid. 

They slip into their former and comfortable routine, Janna tending the sick local animals and buying a dovecote, Gerta resuming her needlework and gardening. They spend the next few seasons working, socializing, and occasionally buying paintings and gimcrackery that speak to them of their adventures. Reindeer and seascapes figure prominently. 

They write to their former landlady and to Prince August every now and again. They always ask if either has heard anything about the missing mermaid. Neither ever has.

News from the oceanside village drifts north eventually, though. The prince's bride has come north on an official visit; she and the prince seem affectionate, if not hopelessly in love; the royal wedding has been scheduled for the following summer. (August sends his deepest and most frustrated apologies for not inviting them; it seems that all of the invitations must go to the powerful, the influential or the rich.) Gerta winces when she hears the date; it's the day after the spell is due to expire.

A week after the prince's wedding, there is a knock at the door of the house that Gerta and Janna share with Grandmother. Janna hastens to answer it…and then stands there, gaping in silence.

"May I come in?" asks Nerissa.

***

Of course they invite her in. Nerissa complains good-naturedly how hard it was to find the two of them, saying that she never would have if not for their letters to their landlady. 

"But how can you be standing here?" Gerta asks. "Shouldn't you be back in the ocean?"

"And where have you been?" Janna adds.

Nerissa tells them.

It's a story of bewilderment, of the attempts of someone from a world without borders or needs for alliances to grasp the prince's need to protect one and form the other. She speaks of her first taste of cooked food (which she had found horribly bland at first), her confusion over the worth of money, her bafflement and delight at first touching a puppy and a kitten, her initial belief that shoes were a kind of jewelry and therefore optional, whatever the weather.

And then, as Gerta's face is turning poppy-red and Janna is gazing at Nerissa askance, the story changes. Nerissa tells them of a woodcutter traveling to a forest and her own desire to learn what "forest" meant. After the woodcutter, she journeys with a pair of musicians—mother and son? Brother and sister? She doesn't know—and learning that notes, delicate flickering notes, can be captured and pinned to paper so that a song can never be forgotten. She speaks of her first time in a big city, of seeing a thousand different faces and hearing languages she does not know, of the ubiquity of printed signs and her need to learn what written words mean, too.

She learns to read through sheer grit. She hears about human poetry, tries writing poems about her love for the prince, and then writes an ode to meadows and woodland instead. And she realizes, about this point, that almost everyone knows more than she does, so she asks them to teach her things: etiquette (which baffles her beyond the telling of it), cooking, painting, dance steps, how to sing better, how to talk with her hands on days when it's impossible to breathe. And she begins collecting rocks. She likes the way they feel.

She visits rivers and climbs hills. She sees snow for the first time and learns to appreciate fire. Her favorite word becomes "Why?" She sees a painting of a desert landscape in a museum and thinks, _One day I'll see that for myself._ She gazes up at the geese and swans and wishes that she could fly with them as well.

On the last day of the spell, she's in a city not far from the copper-roofed castle. She tours it all on foot, striving to emblazon everything in her memory forever.

She weeps when the city bells chime midnight…and then gasps. For the duration of the spell is over, and she is the same. No…better. For her lungs are working flawlessly now, and the gill slits in her neck are not merely sealed but gone.

"But," she adds, sounding frustrated, "I don't know why."

"You fell in love with the world," Gerta explains, her heart soaring. _So this was what Falan meant—the circumstance that changed how the spell worked, the one that no one could plan for._ "You loved it so much you couldn't bear to leave it. And people—some of the people of the world—loved you back."

***

Nerissa continues to adventure, to study, and to explore while dropping by Gerta's and Janna's house (or, as it remains for a long time in their town, Grandmother's house) every now and again. She calls them (and Falan, too, once she learns of the horse's contribution) her godmothers. Because, after all, what else should she call the magical helpers of a princess?

The cove gains an eerie reputation that drives most humans to avoid it, for that is where Nerissa, her sisters, her father and yes, sometimes even her grandmother meet after her transformation. It is, at first, a stormy place (for the Sea King is not pleased to have lost his youngest daughter to the world above), but over time the storms die down. The haunting mermaids' song never does, though, and the boulder on which Nerissa used to perch now has a bas-relief carved onto it, facing the sea, its images conveying the tale of a mermaid who fell in love, first with a prince and then with a world. Sometimes, too, pearls can be found strewn about the base of the sculpture--and it is not wise for anyone else to touch them, for they are gifts to Nerissa from a family that still loves her and wishes her well.

Gerta and Janna continue to live happily in Grandmother's house. They keep in touch with August (though it is more difficult to do so with Falan); they continue to garden, embroider and heal. When they can afford it, they spend the summer in their "honeymoon tavern," watched over by Mousebones, who continues to maintain that they would get into dreadful trouble if he was not there to watch out for him. It is, after all, a quiet life.

Perhaps, though, it would be best to describe their ending this way: "And so the two women would live together in love, joy, friendship and laughter until the end of their days." 

And really, is there a better ending for a fairy tale?

**Author's Note:**

> "Ondine" is an alternate spelling of "undine," meaning "water elemental," "water nymph," or (sometimes) "mermaid."
> 
> The places and beaches that Gerta and Janna see in their travels to the sea are real. Not knowing when _The Raven and the Reindeer_ is set, I've tried to stick to places and items existed in the 1800s to early 1900s, though I've sometimes displaced them in time/or location.
> 
> The Ny Carlsberg Brewhouse of Copenhagen (dating from 1882) did occasionally house elephants in its stables. 
> 
> [The throne of Denmark is said to be made of unicorn horns](http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/throne-of-denmark). In fact, the legs and spokes are narwhal tusks.
> 
> The Rundetårn, or Round Tower, is an old astronomical observatory with a spiral ramp instead of a staircase. The builders constructed it this way to make it easier to transport delicate equipment to the top. [And it really has been used for bicycle races](http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/rundet-rn).
> 
> Grenen is the northernmost point in Denmark, [where the Kattegat (the waters between Denmark and Sweden) and the Skagerrak Strait (part of the North Sea) meet](http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/grenen). (The Kattegat and the Skagerrak Strait are not oceans, but the bodies of water that Gerta and Janna stand and kiss in are.)
> 
> The lighthouses and churches that are being buried by sand are allusions to the [Rubjerg Knude Lighthouse](http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/rubjerg-knude-lighthouse) and [the Sand-Covered Church](http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-sand-covered-church).
> 
> The copper-roofed castle is based on Kronborg Castle on the island of Zealand. The village below it is called Helsingr...or, in English, Elsinore. Yes, this is Hamlet's castle.
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> The "contorted labyrinth of spruce, birch and willow trees, planted to keep back the sea" is [Thagaard's Plantation](http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/thagaards-plantation) in Thisted, Denmark--which is on the opposite side of the country from Kronborg Castle. 
> 
> Glanders is a real disease of horses, mules and donkeys that causes ulcerations in the lungs and skin. It is treatable, but extremely contagious--even humans can catch it--and, if not cared for, usually lethal.
> 
> Prince August's schooner, the _Najaden_ , is named for the frigate in the Royal Dano-Norwegian Navy, the HDMS _Najaden_ , [which served from 1796 to 1807 until she was captured and refitted by the British Navy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMS_Najaden_\(1796\)). The name means "naiad"--or "water nymph."


End file.
